Add X-Power to Your XML Development with Liquid XML Studio 2011

Today, more and more applications are migrating to the Web and the Cloud services are taking over the world; XML has become one of the key and vital parts of the data exchange mechanism. Whether you are developing client centric applications or building a consumer product, you will end up working with XML.

Today, more and more applications are migrating to the Web
and the Cloud services are taking over the world; XML has become one of the key
and vital parts of the data exchange mechanism. Whether you are developing
client centric applications or building a consumer product, you will end up
working with XML.

What is Liquid XML Studio 2011?

Liquid XML Studio 2011 is an advanced IDE developed by Liquid Technologies to work with
XML files and related documents. Some of the common features of Liquid Studio 2011
are the following :

Visual Studio 2010 users may find the Liquid XML Studio 2011
IDE familiar. It is a MDI application with menu, Toolbar, Project Explorer,
Properties and other controls similar to Visual Studio 2010. The typical XML
file in the IDE looks as in Figure 1.

Figure 1

You will notice a File menu that has New, Open and other
typical menu items. You may also see a typical code and designer window. There
is a Project Explorer and a Properties window. You may also notice a Design, Split and Source view at the bottom of the
IDE.

Why Liquid XML Studio 2011?

OK, so you are an expert in working with XML documents. Now,
the very first question is, why do I need Liquid XML Studio 2011? The answer is
speed and time. Liquid XML Studio 2011 adds speed to your development and hence
saves a lot of time. Now you can not only work with your existing XML documents
but you can also download hundreds of existing templates and documents.

Liquid XML Studio starter edition starts at $112. If it
saves me a couple of hours a month, it makes sense for me to spend that kind of
money.

Get Started

OK, let's get started. Let's see how Liquid XML Studio 2011
works.

Create and Edit XML Documents

If you select New files in the IDE, you will see categories
in the left side and the right side will have the file type. If you notice in
the left side bar, the categories are Web, XML Document and more. If you select
the XML Document category, you will see a CSS Style Sheet, Text File, XML
Document and other file types in the right side. See Figure 2.

To add a file type, just select a file type and click OK.

Figure 2

XML Validations

Once a file is added, you will notice that Toolbar options are
loaded based on the file type. For example, for an XML file, you will see
Format XML and Validate Document. The XML view in the Studio looks as in Figure
3.

Figure 3

Figure 4 shows the Validate Document toolbar.

Figure 4

If you validate an XML document and the document is not well
formed, you will get an error message that looks like Figure 5. You may also
notice the exact error message, line number, location and the file name in the
Error List window.

Figure 5

If the XML document is well formed, the message will be
otherwise.

Designer and Code Split View

As I said previously, the designer and editors are the bread
and butter of Liquid XML Studio 2011. Similar to Visual Studio 2010, the XML
Studio has three views - Design, Source and Split. The Split view is a
real-time view of the code and vice versa. Figure 6 shows the three views.

Figure 6

Diagram View

Diagram View is another editor in Liquid XML Studio 2011
that allows developers to see XML and other documents in a local tree structure
and to edit them in real-time. You can also add, edit and delete logical tree
nodes by simply dragging and dropping them at different positions. Figure 7
shows the Diagram view of an XML file.

Figure 7

Intellisense

One more feature of Liquid XML Studio 2011 is Intellisense
support in documents. You can enable Intellisense by using the toggle as you
see in Figure 8.

Figure 8

Built-in Templates

Liquid XML Studio 2011 comes with an abundance of built-in
templates. For example, if you select a category in the left side, you will get
pre-defined and pre-loaded templates in the right side as you see in Figure 9.

Figure 9

Visual Studio 2005, 2008 and 2010
Integration

Liquid XML Studio 2011 integrates
smoothly into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008 and 2010 that allows you to
work with XML and related documents within Visual Studio IDE.

The Starter Edition
priced at $110.50 per license is ideal for home users or students for creating
simple XML documents and work with existing XML schema.

The Designer Edition
priced at $331.52 per license includes all features in the Starter Edition plus
graphical editors and tools for working with complex XML schema. This version
is ideal for analysts and designers.

The Developer Edition
priced at $841.57 per license is ideal for developers and testers. It includes
all features in the Designer Edition plus the powerful XML data binding code
generator.

I personally would not
recommend the Starter Edition because the actual power of the Liquid XML Studio
lies in the editors and designers.

If you are not a heavy XML user, perhaps Liquid XML Studio 2011
is not for you. But if your applications heavily rely on XML documents and
related technologies, you may want to check out Liquid XML Studio 2011. If you
are a technical project manager or lead and manage multiple projects and
enterprise application that uses XML for data exchange and/or data storage,
Liquid XML Studio 2011 may add some serious X-Power and X-Speed to your
development.